I went to one of my favorite hiking spots and discovered that some of it had been burned. I don’t know if this was a controlled burn or a wild fire. I do remember seeing a lot of smoke in the sky a couple of weeks ago and I wonder if this was the source.
As you can see in the photo below, a large part of Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge is brown and barren from a fire.
I tried to find a little beauty to photograph. There were some wildflowers that were shooting up out of the charred ground. I got down low and tried to get the burned land and trail behind it. The sky is slightly over-exposed in the corner.
Sadly, one of my favorite photographic subjects was destroyed by the fire. An old dead tree that I enjoyed photographing with the wildflowers is now gone.
You can see what it looked like before the fire below.
I guess the fires are good for new growth, removing the dead material to make way for new plants.
Jason Frels 
What a beautiful story in pictures Jason. Mother Nature never destroys, she only “rearranges” what is in need of reinvigoration.
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Yes, I know it is necessary, but the immediate aftermath is not very photogenic.
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Yes, but think of all the beautiful photo ops you’ll have after the fact.
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That’s a nice image of a rain lily in the scorched land: a little ironic, but interesting. I suspect it was a prescribed fire. I saw on the Balcones Fire Management page on Facebook that there was a prescribed burn of the Bee Creek unit on August 12. The time frame’s right. Even if this isn’t the Bee Creek unit, they might have done more than one fire if the conditions were right.
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Yeah, I kind figured it was intentional as it ended along the boundary of a maintenance road. I’m sure it will look great when all of the new plants sprout up.
I was kind of hoping for some photos of the long golden grass in the wind, but the grass is still quite short from a burn earlier in the year. Maybe in a month or two.
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The picture of the lone wildflower amidst the charred grass makes for a great picture I think.
You are right, controlled fires do help new growth but…..the old, dead tree won’t come back! When I read your words, I was like Oh No, he isn’t talking about the tree that I think he is, then sadly I saw that you were. At least you have pictures!
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I hope the old tree wanted a cremation. Burn areas aren’t much fun to hike through, but sometimes you can get a good photo from them, such as the flower. Sorry that happened to one of your favorite haunts.
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I never made it to the Balcones Refuge. I visited Marble Falls, Horseshoe Bay, Spicewood, Lakeway and bought my F250 in Liberty Hill.
Maybe with everything burning in California & Colorado, preemptive small burns stop big burns.
The little flower and burnt tree are pitiful.
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I guess we could all use a good fire to help us grow…
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